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I don't understand why there's confusion. It's not a sail on the thing, it's a turbine. Isn't this just gear ratios? The car goes as fast as whatever power the turbine makes can be delivered through a set a gears (or chains/sprockets...same thing).
Just shows how these professors don't know as much as they think they do. Many act like they are so smart and above everyone else. Good to see one go down like this
But where from here?
Should it be taught in school under internet memes? Or will it be a circular internet conversation forever? Are circular internet conversations bad? It feels like we will never run out.
Comment from 1895 on 'What does "Sailing faster than the Wind" Mean?' https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/197614156 which is part of the confusion, since people jump to this other meaning.
It's not clear if these rumoured boats in the 80's actually existed and could overpower the water's drag, I assume not - https://issuu.com/latitude38/docs/latitude3894apunse/162 (1985)
If wind speeds a vehicle to some speed, and the vehicle has inertia, and the wind slows down somewhat, how is it surprising that the vehicle would go faster in the wind? Or, does this vehicle, after acceleration has completed, purport to continuously travel faster than the wind at an indefinite steady state?
On the craft is a ribbon, it's dangling from the front of the craft. This is called a "telltale" because it tells the direction of the wind from the perspective of the craft. If the craft is at rest, then the telltale points downwind. And if the craft is moving faster than the wind the telltale points the opposite direction -- backwards, if the craft is moving downwind.
What you can see from the runs is that while the telltale is pointing backwards (so, the craft is moving faster than the wind) the craft actually continues to accelerate! In fact while the landspeed record was set as 2.8x the ambient windspeed, the craft was still accelerating, and would have gone faster had they not had to brake.
The videos have a lot more to say and I found them really fascinating and counterintuitive, I wanna really emphasize that you should watch them if you find the idea banal or trivial.
Derek Muller is a bit of a celebrity at my faculty. He is a fellow Queens University "Engineering Physics" alumni, a degree most people have never heard of. Thanks for putting us on the map, Derek!
I don't understand why there's confusion. It's not a sail on the thing, it's a turbine. Isn't this just gear ratios? The car goes as fast as whatever power the turbine makes can be delivered through a set a gears (or chains/sprockets...same thing).
Kusenko should get a lot of credit here: he bet on his beliefs, agreed to terms, and then acknowledged the truth and paid up when he was wrong.
He gets credit for paying up yes, but without clearly acknowledging the truth of the matter it seems very hollow and frankly childish and doesn’t reflect positively on him.